


see the man (but not the light)

by Myrime



Category: Iron Man (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel
Genre: College, Don't copy to another site, Enemies to Friends, First Meetings, Friendship, Gen, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, MIT Era, Protective James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Tony Being Tony, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, iron man bingo 3000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 14:01:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19831714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myrime/pseuds/Myrime
Summary: Jim Rhodes had plans to enjoy his college years to the fullest. These plans dissolve into thin air when he gets settled with the white rich kid. Anthony Stark is a mess, and Jim will do his best not to be dragged down with him.(That resolve lasts about a week until he first saves Tony from himself. From then on, there's no escaping fate.)





	see the man (but not the light)

**Author's Note:**

> Another entry for the [Iron Man Bingo 2019 Round 2](https://iron-man-bingo.tumblr.com/), square: MIT era First Meeting.  
> I love Rhodey and Tony's friendship, but I'm pretty sure they did not get a smooth beginning.  
> Enjoy!

The first time Jim steps into his new dorm, he is livid. He has been told beforehand that he will share with a literal child and that he would be expected to keep an eye on the boy. If he had known they would rearrange his entire schedule to fit that of the boy’s, turning it into one giant, inconvenient mess of scattered classes, he would never have accepted. Well, considering he is here on a scholarship and thanks to ROTC, he still might have, but far less graciously.

Worse, he is only halfway up the stairs to the floor designated in his letter, when he hears the pounding music, giving the best impression that he is entering a disco and not MIT’s dorms. And of course, _of course,_ it has to come from his room.

As he stands before the door, he considers finding someone more appropriate to deal with this immediately, perhaps even his parents to get him another roommate. Jim is eighteen and off to college, he is not interested in reliving his high school years here.

Taking a deep breath, Jim goes in without knocking. This is supposed to be his room too. Not that his knock would have had any chance of being heard, not without bashing the door in at the same time. He immediately wishes he had not.

The kid is – young. Fourteen, Jim was told, but it has been an eternity ago that Jim himself was fourteen, and he somehow figured that anyone allowed into MIT early should look the part. Instead, he is facing a smooth-cheeked boy with wild hair and ill-fitting clothes, sitting in the middle of a veritable mess of clothes, tools, and what looks like engine parts. Chaos already engulfs their whole room, easily devouring Jim’s half too. Jim wonders what else he expected from a rich, white kid who never had to share anything and got everything he asked for.

_Anthony Stark_ , son of Howard Stark, heir of Stark Industries, supposedly a genius, and already the cause of a number of newspaper headlines. Even ignoring the age difference, they could not be more different. It makes Jim angry. Why exactly did they ask him, the poor, black scholarship student to take care of their resident wonder boy? Other than because he could hardly say no, too grateful for the opportunity to be here at all.

With more force than necessary, Jim throws the door shut behind him. Despite the volume of the music, Stark must have heard him. He flinches as his head whips up, and Jim is not sure what to make of his expression, which makes him seem much older than fourteen for a moment, almost like he is scared of something but resigned to it.

As soon as Stark registers Jim, a brief blankness washes over his face, soon to be replaced by a blinding smile, showing too many teeth. That only serves to annoy Jim more. Obviously, Stark thought he would have the whole room to himself. If he tries to sweet-talk himself out of this, Jim is going to give him a piece of his mind. His parents taught him to stand up for himself.

While Jim is still taking in the mess of the room, Stark turns off the music abruptly, leaving Rhodey’s ears ringing, and jumps to his feet. He navigates the littered floor with ease, bare feet just barely missing several sharp-looking things. Even before he reaches Jim, Stark offers his hand. A proper little businessman right there. When Jim fails to offer his own hand, Stark picks it up himself and shakes vigorously.

“You must be my roommate. I’m Tony,” he says, the words tumbling out of his mouth almost quicker than Jim can take them in. “What’s your favourite subject? Oh, and I’ve kind of filled both wardrobes already, but I’ve called someone to get us another one.”

A quick glance reveals that the doors of both wardrobes do not close the whole way. That, together with the assumption of getting special treatment on their first day here has Jim’s anger rising another notch. How dare that privileged little prick occupy Jim’s new home so completely before Jim has even arrived?

“Listen here, kid,” Jim snaps. The derision in his tone is a tangible thing and later he will realize it has more to do with his uncertainty about this new situation than Stark’s behaviour. “I’m not going to be your babysitter, and I sure as hell won’t be your butler. I don’t care for your little rich kid routine, so don’t bother me unless you’re actually in trouble.”

Something in Stark’s expression shatters. The smile turns sharp-edged, devolving into a smirk. His eyes grow dark, even while they widen a fraction. His posture, too, becomes a little straighter. It does not exactly make him look older, but in that moment, he is definitely not a child anymore, and utterly unapproachable on top of it.

Jim has to admit that, just moments before, Stark might have been overeager, every single movement too loud and confident, but now he is something colder, carved out of stone almost. Now, every twitch and gesture and look is controlled.

For a very brief moment, Jim feels a strange loss he cannot explain. It leaves as quickly as it came, replaced by pure irritation. He is not going to play any stupid high society games here.

“You can have the right side of the room,” Stark offers magnanimously, his voice clipped, closed off. He is already turning away, not waiting for an answer.

Jim’s mouth opens immediately to protest. He is not going to let this little prick decide over his life. They are going to discuss this like proper human beings. Just because Stark is used to getting everything he wants does not mean that Jim will simply lie down and let him take it.

Then he sees Stark pushing some of the mess on the floor to one side of the room with his foot. It is the one closer to the wall where, on the first glance, the desk stands at a strange angle to the bed, leaving it just a tiny bit smaller. That leaves the half with the window. The light makes it look bigger already. If Stark gives it up so easily, there must be something wrong with it, but Jim is just glad he will have control over the window, so he decides not to fight. He will likely need his energy soon enough.

Not bothering with an answer, he walks towards his new bed and lets his bag fall onto it. He does not feel like he has arrived at his destination yet. It is easy to blame that on his roommate, but now that they are facing away from each other and Jim is left with the task of unpacking his things, of accepting this as home for now.

Well, he cannot actually unpack much, with Stark having filled all available space already. Going to MIT has been so different in his imagination. It feels tainted, even before he has had his first class.

Shrugging his shoes off, Jim puts them neatly next to the door, then hangs his jacket on the rack, next to a mess of cables. He already has his mouth open to ask about them but thinks better of it. The less he interacts with Stark and his personal brand of madness the better.

He will just prepare his bed for the night and then go around campus to get a feel for this place that he will spend the next years at. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees that Stark is already done with his futile cleaning action, and lets himself fall back amidst the debris of whatever he was doing before Jim came in.

Jim can only stare when Stark reaches out for the stereo and turns the music back on, just as loud, just as insufferable. Considering that his patience has been running thin before this, Jim thinks his reaction could have been worse. Two determined strides bring him over to where Stark sits and then he is bearing down on the kid. Harsher than necessary, he hits blindly at the stereo to turn it off.

“Let’s make some ground rules,” he all but growls, unfazed by Stark’s wide-eyed shock. “You stick to your side of the room and remember that I’m living here too. That means you’ll keep watch of your mess, ask if you want to listen to music, and don’t bother me.”

As Stark looks up at him, he appears even smaller than before, with his shoulders hunched and his jaw clenched. Jim does not want to hear anything he might have to say, so he just keeps talking.

“I know MIT wants me to be your chaperone,” he all but spats the word, causing another flinch, “but your daddy should hire you a nanny if you need one. You can do what you want as long as you don’t get me in trouble.”

He does not add an _or else_ or something like it, but if Stark’s expression is anything to go by, he does not have to. It looks like Stark’s bravado is nothing but hot air and bought confidence. If there is a normal boy still hiding beneath that, this might not be too bad. Until then, Jim just has to have some patience.

* * *

After that less than stellar first meeting, Jim does not see Stark for several days. His bed remains untouched as does the mess on the floor. At the same time, rumours begin spreading across campus about the Stark heir, who apparently has already caused his first explosion in one of the labs. Jim spends the rest of the day breathless, waiting for someone to come to him for answers, considering that he has already failed the first task MIT has set him. Nobody comes, nobody cares. At least the third wardrobe is delivered as promised, allowing Jim to finally unpack.

It is, strangely enough, the first party of the semester when Stark reappears, brazen and loud as if he never vanished. He is also drunk. Utterly wasted, actually. Holding a red paper cup in his hand, he dances among a group of half-naked frat members, neither sloshing his drink nor looking like he feels out of place. In the dark room, he looks ageless but so small that the protective side in Jim roars its head, much to his own annoyance.

For some hours, he manages to ignore Stark’s presence, although the kid continually shows up wherever the party is the loudest and liveliest. It is impossible to ignore him, but Jim keeps his distance. Being appointed Stark’s chaperone is bad enough. Making it public during the first party of his college career would be social suicide. He might pick up what is left of Stark later, so MIT can send him home and tell Stark Senior that they should perhaps reconsider their priorities.

Jim ends up drinking very little. He tells himself it is because he, too, is not legally allowed to consume alcohol, and not because he feels he needs to be sober later, in case Stark does something truly damaging to himself. It is the kind of lie he does not even believe himself.

In the end, it was a wise decision. At some point, long after midnight, Stark bursts out of a faceless mass of drunk people, pointing right at Jim and roars, “Hello, roommate. Wanna dance?”

At least, Jim supposes that is what Stark wants to say. The words come out mangled and slurred, contorted by the alcohol flooding through his veins.

Before Jim can make a tactical retreat to make sure no one associates him with the horrible mess that is Tony Stark, the kid makes to come towards him but stumbles over his own feet and would have fallen flat onto his face if Jim had not caught him. For once, he curses his fast reflexes. It might not have been kind to let Stark fall, but at least the people around them would not stare at him like this.

Fed up, he drags Stark back to his feet and steers him towards the exit. They have to pass the bar on their way, which Stark seems magically drawn to. Jim tightens his grip on Stark’s shoulder to keep him from running away and doing something stupid like breaking his neck or get alcohol poisoning.

“You’ve had enough,” he growls into Stark’s ear.

To Jim’s unending surprise, Stark does not protest. He goes somewhat limp in Jim’s arm but stumbles along to the best of his ability. 

They earn some more stares as they leave the house and walk out onto the street, but people still wave at Jim as he passes, which hopefully means he has not shot his reputation to hell already. Once outside, Jim’s ears ring with the sudden absence of music, and he breathes deeply, glad for the fresh night air.

“You don’t like me,” Stark mutters as they are halfway down the street. He is so quiet that Jim almost does not hear him, which might have been on purpose.

Jim snorts without humour. “Not particularly, no.” If he was not sure that Stark has drunk enough to forget everything that has happened tonight, he might have not been this honest. Stark might be annoying, but he is still a kid.

“That’s all right,” Stark sighs, sounding not overly affected or even surprised. “Jarvis is the only one who does.”

Something in his tone has warning bells ring in Jim’s head. Of course, the rich white kid has to have issues. “Who’s Jarvis?” he still asks. Perhaps, if he gets to know a bit more about Stark, they might find some similarities.

“Our butler.”

The very moment Jim thinks he might have a normal conversation with Stark, the kid has to say something like this. Normal people do not have butlers. More so, normal people do not pay others to pretend to be their friends. Jim’s heart goes out to the poor Jarvis, even without having ever met him. The short time they have known each other now is enough for Jim to know that no amount of money is enough to pay for the hassle of taking care of Stark.

He does not answer, mostly because he does not have anything nice to say to that.

They have still a third of the way to go, when Stark grows heavier and holds his stomach, looking like misery incarnate. As if he has done so a hundred times, Jim guides the kid to sit down on the sidewalk, awkwardly patting his back.

“I swear, if you vomit on my shoes, I’m going to leave you lying in the curb,” he says, mostly to give Stark something to concentrate on other than his upset stomach.

Stark makes himself as small as he can manage without rolling into a ball on the ground. “Just have them cleaned.”

“Not everybody swims in money,” Jim replies, still somewhat upset, but he is sure Stark feels miserable enough that Jim can cut him some slack.

Raising his head, Stark blinks sluggishly up at Jim. “You’ve got me for that now,” he says in a strange tone.

With more vehemence than perhaps necessary, Jim says, “I don’t want your money, Stark.” He is aware that, compared to a lot of the other students here, he is poor. His parents taught him, though, to be glad for the life he has. He has never had to starve or worry about losing the roof over their heads. He has never _felt_ poor.

Caught in his indignation, Jim almost misses Stark’s answer. “Everybody does.”

What a sad way to live, to have so much that it is the only thing others see in him anymore. Jim does not have any pity for Stark, however.

“You don’t know me,” he says sharply, “so don’t make assumptions.”

The misery lifts momentarily from Stark’s face as his expression gets brighter, earnest even. “I do know you. You’re my knight in shining armour but softer.” He leans into Jim’s touch as if that is something he has a right to. “You’re nice. You’re – you’re _Rhodey_.”

He speaks with the kind of hopeful fervour that Jim does not exactly want to shut down, but he knows it will be only a matter of time until Stark will piss him off again.

“That’s not my name,” he says stubbornly but is not surprised when Stark is not impressed by his protest.

“Yes it is. James is so boring. Rhodey, though,” Stark smiles and that almost makes him look charming, “that’s good.”

Unwilling to argue with a drunk kid in the middle of the street, Jim pulls Stark back to his feet. “Let’s get you home.”

Hopefully, Stark will have forgotten all about the stupid nickname when he wakes up.

* * *

The next morning, Stark is nowhere to be found. _Again_. On Jim’s nightstand waits a Styrofoam cup of coffee for him. It is already mostly cold, but still tastes better than the gruel they get from the machine downstairs. Jim wonders whether this is Stark’s way of apologizing for last night.

He does not have much time to ponder the mystery that is Tony Stark, though, for he has to get ready for his first class. After spending a whole week battling his disappointment at being settled with the rich kid, pure excitement washes over him now. This is what he has been working so hard for. _MIT._

When he arrives at the auditorium for their first class, only a few places are already filled, but one figure immediately attracts Jim’s attention. Stark sits alone, with some distance between him and the other students. Despite the mess he has been the night before, too drunk to properly walk, he looks bright-eyed and attentive, fingers drumming impatiently on a notebook in front of him while he keeps glancing at the door next to the blackboard, waiting for the professor to come in.

It would have been easy to find himself a seat far away from Stark. Jim has already made some possible friends over the past days, a group of which is waving him closer from near the front of the room. There is something off about how isolated Stark is, though. Yes, he is young. Yes, he is rich. The excess of the night before hints at some problems Jim is not actually interested in getting to the bottom of.

No fourteen-year-old should be drinking at college parties, much less being able to keep up with everyone else. This cannot have been the first time Stark had alcohol, neither the second or tenth. He drank the stuff like water, laughing too loudly and dancing too close to others.

Well, anyone going to college at such a young age must have some problems. It is not Jim’s job to solve them or even just find out what they are. In fact, he should probably tell someone about Stark acting out during the first week of his first semester already. And yet.

Jim has a choice to make, right here, right now. He can leave Stark to his misery, watching him stumble along from afar as to not put his own presence here in danger. Or he could listen to his gut and reach out to Stark, who might be an asshole but is still young enough to perhaps be saved. In the end, it is actually rather easy. His mother raised him to be a good person, after all.

With an apologetic wave at the people in the front, Jim marches towards Stark. It earns him some raised eyebrows, but he has seen several of these people flocking to Stark the night before, and he is sure they had less interest in the kid’s wellbeing than something more material.

Utterly nonchalant, as if nothing is strange with the situation, Jim slides into place next to Stark.

“Thanks for the coffee” he says by way of greeting. “Tell me where you got it and I’ll bring one for you to class tomorrow.”

Jim does not want to outright say _I owe you_ , but he does not want Stark to think that he is that easily bought or that he _should_ be bought at all. He would be far happier if he did not have to carry his drunk roommate home every other day. Especially his drunk _underage_ roommate. He just wants college to not be a horrible experience.

“I don’t -” Stark begins, but that is when the professor enters.

“Don’t distract me during class,” Jim all but orders and does not look at Stark again for the rest of the lecture, even though the incredulity directed at him hangs almost tangible in the air between them.

At least Stark does not actually try to talk to him, thus doing what he was told for the first time since they met. It is not perfect, far from it. They are not friends, and Jim has no interest in becoming that either. He is sure they can come to an arrangement and this whole roommate business will not be so bad.

(Jim will reconsider this statement only a week later, when Stark first sets fire to their dorm room. A year later – when they are already Rhodey and Tones – he is used to it, and would not trade his best friend for anything.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Find me on [tumblr](https://blancheludis.tumblr.com/) to chat if you want to.


End file.
